she is vanilla
by necrofabulous
Summary: "My name is...Nadeshiko. And I'm a girl." — Nadeshiko-centric. Trans character.


**a/n: wanted to try my hand at writing trans girl nadeshiko. i was rewatching shugo chara today, and this came to mind. nadeshiko/nagihiko is so cute.  
this fic is not meant to follow canon. so please dont be rude if you disagree with the content! **

* * *

Nadeshiko Fujisaki is absolutely radiant.

She is the embodiment of everything dainty and flowery—roses and lilies and daffodils alike. She is graceful and smooth and she dances on pigeon toes that can draw a whole room towards her—turn heads with the dips of her fan into warm air where her body once was, summon a room full of onlookers without even trying.

She is vanilla and sweet and she has a smile like soft diamonds, none too polished, but something extravagant. Her beauty is a docile one, ginger and petite just as she was.

And of all these things, most of all, Nadeshiko Fujisaki is a lie.

You must become a girl, her mother had told her one day, only a young child. It is tradition for the Fujisaki family to master their feminine side for Japanese dance, she had said. Nadeshiko listened, Nadeshiko nodded.

Nadeshiko realizes at the age of nine or ten she did not need to become a girl, for she was already one.

Nadeshiko holds her breath when they call her that ugly name—_Nagihiko_. She keeps her tongue pressed to the roof of her mouth when they are alone, and feels her heart glitter when, in the public eye, they call her what she truly is. Who she truly is.

Nadeshiko.

* * *

Nadeshiko is happy when she is at school.

She's happy with her hair tied tightly at the top of her head—made complete with a pink flower pin that holds pretty purple strands in place. Her hair isn't very hard to comb in the morning, often brushing through it ten times a night to keep it so soft. At those times, she looks at herself in the mirror, and remembers her mother's words. She is only pretending to be a girl. She is a boy. She is Nagihiko—not Nadeshiko.

She tries to tell herself this, but when Amu calls her name with a voice like honey and sugar and everything that makes up that strange, charming girl—she knows her mother is wrong. She is Nadeshiko.

So she turns and smiles at Amu, who runs to hold her hand.

* * *

Nadeshiko fights back all her condemning tears when her mother tells her that her training is over. She is done "pretending" to be a girl, and that nobody has to know. She will leave abroad and return as Nagihiko, the boy who never existed. The boy who shouldn't have been.

Nadeshiko smiles, a broken lamb within herself, and nods.

"Yes, mother."

* * *

Her pants don't feel right on her. Her hair missing of her pink flower clip does not feel right on her, but Nadeshiko bites her lip. She has always bit her lip. Nadeshiko is old enough to know what may happen if she tells anyone who she really is—that Nagihiko and Nadeshiko are one, that Nagihiko is but a translucent nightmare she wishes to shake free from her heavy concrete shoulders, but she knows her place.

She introduces herself to her old friends as the phantom boy, Nagihiko Fujisaki.

Her soul cracks when Amu, the girl with the honey voice, calls her by that very ugly name.

* * *

Rima Mashiro knows.

She stares at Nadeshiko with eyes that cut through her and she laughs nervously and tries to speak to her. The blonde haired girl (much like a small animal, a fawn—Nadeshiko musters when she looks down at her) shakes Nadeshiko off, giving her glares and grimaces that make Nadeshiko want to faint. They make her knees go weak; they make her unsettled and scared and frightened, vulnerable much like an infant would be.

Rima Mashiro scares her.

"You like wearing skirts, don't you?" Rima says as she runs her hand underneath curled blonde dresses and tosses them over her shoulder, eyes accusing, lips pursed perfectly—a little rose. Rima knows Nadeshiko's secret—a part of it, knows Nagihiko.

Nadeshiko's heart burns and she holds back her feelings as she always has, instead playing her words off with a tiny, "No."

* * *

One day, Nadeshiko stops Rima when she is about to leave. Rima looks irritated, as per always, with eyes like knives that cut through Nadeshiko to the core—absolutely petrify her in place. Nadeshiko hovers over the smaller, her heart stilled for a moment.

"What is it, Nagihiko?" Rima asks.

Nadeshiko goes to bite her lip, but instead, they part—and her words spill from her mouth, uncontrolled.

"My name is…Nadeshiko. And I'm a girl."

She swears she sees stars while she waits for Rima to respond.

Her heart is beating out of her chest, convulsing and pulling and ripping her apart with every awful beat that rings through her body. She is sick in this single moment, a wilting flower, a scuffed diamond, anything but vanilla.

"Alright. If you say so, you're a girl. I understand."

Rima pulls herself from her seat, looks Nadeshiko straight in the eyes (oh, she thinks she's going to throw up), and frowns.

"I'm sorry, Nadeshiko. I must have hurt you before."

Nadeshiko's eyes widen, and a part of her severed soul is glued before Rima, a trembling smile curling onto her lips. Nadeshiko's mind is telling her not to cry, to conceal her feelings, to not feel those awful, crushing, destroying feelings she's felt all these years, but the tears begin to dribble down her cheeks. Her tears are warm; ocean water burning in the sun for too long, falling from the curve of her chin to the ground below.

Rima takes her hand, awkwardly, but sincere in the act. She stands, silently.

(And for the first time in forever, Nadeshiko feels as though she will be okay.)


End file.
